The 2010 Internet Browser usage statistics published by NetMarketShare shows that Internet Explorer still has the biggest market share among all browsers.

With the release of the Internet Explorer 8.x, the market of Internet Explorer has shown a trend to grow slightly.

As a user you may not like Internet Explorer. As a user you may love Mozilla or Chrome. But as a designer you must program your WordPress Themes so that they function immaculately on Internet Explorer (including the dreaded IE 6).

The WP Pro Stores Theme users, the Pro MLM Theme users & others have written to us over & over again how they have customized calls to actions on these creative Marketing WordPress Themes to increase their overall ROI.

The most popular calls to action depend on the nature of the business as well as the purpose of the website (or the landing page). They could be as simple as Registrations & Sign Ups to more immediate Buy Now calls.

The Creative Marketing Themes are tested before they are released. The testers include successful online marketers, freelancers who make money blogging as well as extensive MLM business owners. Tests include effectiveness of call-to-action placements.

Most of these creative WordPress Themes for Business leave opportunity for the business owners to customize their specific calls to actions with banners, links or even rotating banners & links. We recommend 8 Tips for Effective Calls to Actions & definitely not more than 3 for any business at one time, & preferably not more than 2 on a single page.

These WordPress Business Marketing Themes also make it very easy to experiment & test the effectiveness of call outs with A/B testing without much hassles. Rarely business themes users have to edit any templates & most of these experiments can be done using the custom theme options panels.

If you have any suggestions, please drop us a mail or leave a comment here.

Why are Calls to Action Important?

Calls to action are designed to achieve your goals & objectives behind a website (or a landing page for example). They direct the visitor to certain actions that you want them to perform. Like buying your product, signing up for your newsletters, filling in a form for the sales rep etc are all various types of calls to action.

Tips on the Best Calls to Action Designs

1. Keep a simple design

2. Keep no more than 3 calls to action buttons

3. Complement Action Buttons with textual descriptions

4. Be clear in the calls to action. Do not say “Free Download” for example but amplify it by saying “Free Business EBook Downloads”

5. Keep all Calls to Action Buttons or messages above the 600 px fold

6. Experiment with various locations of the call to action buttons by understanding your website’s usage patterns or heat map

7. Emphasize calls to action by including links in emails

8. Create tool tips with additional descriptions to each call outs

9. Keep call to action buttons visible on all pages if possible

10. Do not clutter all calls to action buttons in one location – distribute them (and experiment with the distribution) over your website’s real estate

There is no right place or wrong placement when you are designing calls to action for the first time. The banners on our WordPress Marketing Themes follow the most common heat maps for these niches.

We have studied multiple usage patterns of similar websites when designing these themes, and hence the default placement of our banners are often effective. But we still recommend optimizing them with further tests in a real life scenario.

However, its those 20% users who strive to outrun the rest who go in for those minor customizations to win the edge in the competitive battle. These custom banners, or links or menus, are designed to meet the specific requirements of the marketer – higher sign-ups, better conversions, more subscriptions etc.

Analysis of the Custom Pro MLM Marketing WordPress Theme.

• Click Here to Demo & Download the Pro MLM Theme.

This Marketing Theme is customized for the popular business blogging website Pro Media Blog. The top 5 goals for customization were to achieve:

1. increase subscriptions
2. promote their own affiliate program
3. promote 3 top affiliate programs & not compete with their own
4. introduce social networking to readers
5. highlight a couple of valuable pages / posts for long term benefits

1. Customizing the Header in Pro MLM Marketing Theme

The Static Bar – due to the Magazine style design of this WordPress marketing theme, the static bar at the top was essential to keep a few of the critical goals of the marketer like Subscriptions, Social Networking as well as promote the “All Time Top” sections of the website.

The Header is quite unique in a way with the website’s name & brand logo located on the right. This creative design lets the user show the most important banner to the reader in the “hot zone”. In this case, an affiliate banner is displayed.

The Menu is custom designed to be a combination pages, categories, tags & links. Using this method, all the key pages, the important categories & tags as well as any of the partner networking sites can be shown to the reader.

2. Customizing the Hero Image in Pro MLM Marketing Theme

The uniqueness of the business lies in the fact that while they promote other affiliate networks, they also run their own affiliate program. As such these are likely to compete with one another.

To ensure a fair competition a balance is established between the top 3 external affiliate program & their own with the help of the Hero Image. In the demo site, you will see that this is where the most important video is placed. In the custom design, the video is replaced by a banner calling out their own affiliate network program.

3. Customizing the Sidebar & Widgets in Pro MLM Marketing Theme

The Subscription Widget calling attention to sign up for their newsletter is on the top right & visible throughout the website. The call outs to the social networks are only available on the home page on the left sidebar. This is replaced by the more important “Top Categories” on the internal pages to increase engagement & readership time on the site.

Social Networking call outs are placed at the bottom of the articles on the inner pages because that is the likely location of a reader deciding to connect with the business.

There are custom widgets within the home page content area that are used to promote an additional external affiliate network. They are repeated on the home page to emphasize sign ups.

Over all Results of Customizing the Pro MLM Marketing Theme

1. Improvement in the general usability

2. Email subscriptions increased by 12% till date

3. Their own Affiliate Program is popular by over 5% till date

4. External Affiliate Network subscriptions are up by over 10%

Customizations to these effects are always essential on any marketing theme. They help the businesses set themselves apart from the crowd as well as put in the design that meets their specific business goals in the long run.

For WordPress Marketing Themes customization Read More on our Services Page.

We always recommend our customers to personalize these themes to make them unique for their business. The process is quite simple & usually takes a couple of hours to customize a well designed marketing theme.

Benefits of Personalizing WordPress Marketing Themes

1. A Unique Look & Feel – though the themes generally defines templates, WordPress allows tons of creative customizations that can create a very unique look for your marketing & business websites

2. Makes Your Business & Marketing Site Stand Out – with very simple customizations you can make any out-of-the-box creative marketing WordPress themes stand out from the rest

3. Makes Branding Easier – branding is just not about logo. Sure a logo is important but there could be other ways to impress your brand through a very personalized creative theme design

4. Makes Call to Actions Effective – most of our Creative WordPress Themes are designed with certain calls to action in mind. However, to make it suitable for your business style & calls, you would need customizations to make them effective

5. Make it for your Customers – through easy customizations you can make your website so appealing to your customers. This could be as simple as including a few custom scripts or a couple of custom free giveaways that are so desirable in your niche

6. Leave your Impressions – customizations & personalization leaves a lasting impression in your customer’s mind. This is very important especially when growing your business means building a trust worthy relationship with your readers & customers

With a personalized website you get the best of both worlds – a very affordable & functional out-of-the-box marketing theme & a very effective & unique website for your business. And its has been proved over and over again that these customizations are so worth the price!

Creative ad placements also make these advertisements very much a part of your website content, rather than compete against them for attention. As a result, these creative themes do not distract the reader & increases ad click rates on the website.

Here are 5 Examples of very Creative WordPress Theme Designs (including some from our designs) that include advertisements in a very creative way.

1. Freelance Magazine Theme

The advertisements on the home page stands very clearly and right below the “Latest Articles” section. The advertisement is uncluttered & draws the attention naturally while the reader browses the page for more.

2. WordPress Shopping Theme

The header is creatively designed so that the Online Retailer can promote & advertise both their own products as well as affiliate products. The headers ads in this example of creative ad placements are all text ads that rotate periodically, so that you can show numerous promotions & ads in the same place.

3. Bloomberg Business Theme

Notice the clickable advertisement on the bottom corner of the drop down menu. This creative ad placement mimics the ad as part of the menu without confusing the reader that it may not be part of the content itself.

4. Pro-Stores Shopping Theme

The ads are creatively designed along with the “Other Related Items” in this WordPress Online Stores Theme. Being at the end of the content, the visitor is now given a choice to look for something else or view an advertisement before they exit the website.

5. Bloomberg Noir Design

This is from the earlier design of the Bloomber’s business website. The advertisements are placed in conjunction with the magazine displayed on the right. Combining ads with pictures is allowed as long as the ads do not mislead readers as being part of the pictures.

Advertisements could be of 2 types – one, you are displaying 3rd party advertisements to earn money from clicks (publisher), or you are displaying your own banners & creatives to promote your own products or services (advertiser).

We reviewed over 55 website designs that are run by small business owners & freelancer bloggers & found that there are a few common mistakes web designers make while creating themes for advertising & marketing websites.

Most of these mistakes have to do with Incorrect or really Bad Placements of Advertisements & Call Outs.

1. Ads Right Below the Title of the Page or Post

It is a bad design when you place ads right below the title post & the reader has to scroll down to read the content. Other times, the readers just might mistakenly click the ads thinking these links are part of the content.

For a business website, ads placed right below the titles are potential exit points for the readers, who will no longer be reading the content once they click the ad links.

2. Ads Very Close to the Navigation Bar

This design mistake just makes it hard to use the navigation links when the ads are placed too close to the top navigation bar. Imagine a leader board ad right below a horizontal top navigation bar that drops down to expands to lower level pages. The drop downs would most likely cover up the ads & lead to false clicks.

3. Link Ads that Look like Navigation

Many blog designers keep the link ads very close to the top navigation. This is often misleading to the reader & leads to false clicks.

Any ads very close to the top are potential exit points, where the reader could leave the website for good just by clicking on the ads, intentionally or otherwise.

4. Pop-up or Pop-Under ads

These are pure distractions at times. Though most pop-under or pop-up advertisers offer you the ability to control the number of times these are to be displayed, many of these ad scripts could crash the browser.

In the very least, the reader is distracted off your website to a complete new browser.

5. Ads in the Center of the Post

Many popular websites, like MSN or Yahoo, show ads in the center of the post & the user has to scroll down further to continue reading. This is bad ad positioning again, for the same reason that it cuts off the readers’ attention from the post.

And if your content is not strong enough to hold the readers’ interest, they may simply stop reading anything further. These centered ads are often known to be the ‘last point of interest’ on a post & act as exit points even without any ad clicks.

Many of these not-so-good ad positioning can be rectified with a great design. Our Creative Marketing Themes designs attempt to make advertisements a holistic part of the content, rather than an add-on, making them more effective.

But first of all, THANK YOU for all the great feedback! We feel both lucky to have created such a fantastic design, as well as pressured to produce something better in the future.

Customer Feedback on the Photo-Video WordPress Theme:

Jim Southwick writes from Salem, MA:

.. the Photo Video Theme made our job so easy as a photo store owners & photo products affiliate. Now we can sell photos & photo products from the same site, using the same theme. Its just marvelous.

Kenny Lithgow writes from Boise, ID:

.. We used to display photos on one website & sell them from another. And that is so duplication of work. With the WordPress Photo Video Theme, now we can display & sell from one site alone. We now spend the time we save on getting more business…

Kimberly Nance writes from Davis, CA:

.. I am new to WordPress. Having used to other photography themes, I was afraid that any new theme sold as a Professional Portfolio Theme would be either difficult to use, or would just not do the job I wanted.

The Photo Video Theme is different. No frills, no bells & whistles but simply effective. I now not only display images but also started selling photo gears & photography books from my website…

Mervin De’Cunha writes from Kissemmee, FL:

.. just a brilliant piece of programming. We don’t waste any time in updating websites any more. We simply upload the pictures & keep on writing.

We would recommend the Photo Video Theme to photographers as well as photo equipment dealers. It is so worth it!

These are some really nice feedback! And to add to that, you have our after sales support as always. We also recommend asking for the Installation & Customization Service Pack where we work with you to set up the theme for your business.

Now for some feedback on new features our customers would expect out-of-the box on the WordPress Photography Theme:

• social networking to promote your website & photos viraly
• a photo rating system on every photo
• more aggressive advertising leveraging photos on the pages

A Big THANK YOU again for the suggestions. They are all important to us & we would find a creative way to build these in. Here are some solutions to these recommendations:

1. Use the Photo Video Advertising Plugin scripts to monetize your photos with advertisements. It is very easy to use & can be customized easily to suit your specific needs.

2. The Sexy-Bookmark Plugin & the Popularity Plugin scripts can add all the power of social networking & user popularity feedback on photos. They are both available from WordPress Plugins Repository.

An effective call to action would help in the specific conversion effort. If you are looking for new sign-ups, or you are using them to get new subscribers or new sales leads, they should make it quick & easy.

3 Essential Components of an Effective Call to Action Banner

1. Benefits for the visitor

At a glance, the visitor should understand the benefits of the call. The most effective way is to lay down a solution – a solution to a problem that you can offer.

Offer insights using keywords to help the visitor relate your solution to his problem. A few short bullet points is often better than long sentences. A couple of statistical data adds strength to your statements.

2. Brag about your success

Its important to let your visitor know who all benefited from your solutions. Again, short bullet points seem to do the job better than long winded stories. You could also point them to a URL that could act as testimonials from your subscribers or customers.

3. Calls to Actions

It is recommended to have no more than 3 calls to action in any page. Ideally for one banner, you should limit the call to one single action. The call usually uses emphatic actionable words – Call, Sign Up, Subscribe, Buy etc.

The closest variation is to show urgency using the word “Now”. So, calls to action usually end up as – Call Now, Sign Up Now, Subscribe Now, Buy Now.

The other variation is more detailed in the action, including the words “Click here” or simply “Click” leading to Click here to Buy Now, Click the Button to Subscribe, Click & Register Now etc.

What sort of calls to action have you seen to be effective? Share it with our readers.

These WordPress Advertising Themes are designed for Online Freelancers & Bloggers who wish to make a significant amount of income from the blog advertisements. The Multi-Advertisement just makes it easy for them to show numerous ads in the design, thus increasing their online earnings.

One of the most popular websites using the Muti-Ads Themes Pack is ProDigitalTips. The need was to design a theme that is:

• very simple & minimalistic in design
• renders very fast on the browser
• able to show multiple high format IAB advertisements
• advertisements need to have a high click through rate without interfering with the readers’ attention
• easy sign-up to newsletters & email updates
• easy sign-up on social micro-sites like Twitter & Facebook

Partial layout of the creative WordPress advertising theme:

This is a very simple widgetized advertising theme that can display Adsense ads, as well as that of other Adsense Alternative Ads. You can show the high paying ad formats like the large leaderboard, large rectangular ads & vertical sky scrapers along with link-ads.

This WordPress Advertising Theme had significantly increased their click-through-rates & the email sign up has more than doubled. The Pingdom results done over several weeks show that the theme consistently renders within 4.5 seconds.